Kevin fifth in rainy Catalunya

04.04.2012

Second day of testing at Circuit de Catalunya
saw soaked track in the morning and although the track started to dry up
towards the evening, laptimes didn't improve. Perhaps it was down to the
wet-weather tyres which were at their best in full wet conditions but turned
out to be too soft for damp asphalt.

Both sessions were repeatedly stopped by red
flags and afternoon session was cut short when another red flag was flown five
minutes before the end. Kevin managed to drive 62 laps in total and his
afternoon time was 5th best of the session.

Kevin: “All in all I am satisfied with the
test. Inner-team mini-competition ended 2-2 this time, I had better time than
Jules in two sessions and he beat me also twice. During the previous test at
Paul Ricard he was faster in every single session, so Barcelona was a big step
forward for me. Another good thing was that on Wednesday afternoon when track
was damp I managed put together faster lap than Jules in the same conditions
and with exactly the same set-up.

But we need to work further on our cars to be
faster on wet track. We really struggled on Wednesday morning on full wet
asphalt. My time was only 15th, Jules’ one 13th and gap to the leaders was
nothing to cheer about.

Obviously I would have liked to drive more laps
but red flags were waved far too often. On Tuesday afternoon I guess they were
put out about 40 times when somebody went off. I managed to do only one fast
lap on new tyres but Jules didn’t get even that.

Rain also hindered our
progress a little bit. There was no point to do long stints because the risk of
the mistake is very high. We both had minor offs in quick succession at the
very same place on Tuesday morning and both of them brought out red flags. I
had quite a funny incident when my car went off. It got stuck in the gravel and
I then hit the FIRE switch trying to “unfire” the car. But as it turned out,
FIRE stands for fire extinguisher. I realized my fault very quickly because
helmet visor was opened and extinguishing powder hit my face directly. Car was
also covered with extinguishing stuff and it took several hours for poor
mechanics to clean it up. This was also the reason I couldn’t return to the
track in the morning.”